6.25.18. Monday. Stueben, Maine, U.S. to St. John, New Brunswick, Canada.
We got an early start from John & Maryanne's on a grey day with intermittent drizzle.
Headed north searching out various points of interest on our way to St. John’s. A lovely fishing village yielded colorful pictures of lobster traps and wharfs near a small park in the middle of the road with a bell mounted in the center.
Visited the eastern most point in the US which had a picturesque lighthouse and a small but interesting museum.
Then on to Campabello Island, intending to geocache and then take the Deer Island ferry to New Brunswick. Change in plan! The Canadian border officer informed us the ferry wasn’t running. So, we crossed onto Campabello Island, stopped at FDR’s summer house for a geocache (near the water, on the lovely grounds of the estate) and then crossed back into the US where the US border agent insisted we had to remove our helmets and interrogated us like we might have illegal immigrants in the top case! I observed (to Jeff) that she should have known we were barely in Canada. Jeff was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt that she might not have that information. With no ferry, we headed toward Calais to cross the border there.
Our bonus for taking the long way around was our detour to the St. Croix International Historic Site. St. Croix Island is in Canada, but the NPS site is in the US. The docent did a great job explaining the history of the first French settlement led by Pierre Dugua (spelled differently at different historic sites), and the settlers’ disastrous winter in which about half the party died of scurvy. Fun fact: moose meat has vitamin C in it from the cedar bark the moose eat. Unfortunately, the settlers didn’t have any moose meat until the Indians came and rescued them the following March. There’s a nice path to a river outlook with statues and interpretive signs. The history is known through the diaries of Samuel Champlain. This unplanned stop turned out to be the perfect jumping off place for the “Evangeline Trail” part of our journey which came later.
Once at the Calais border station, we both noted a sign stating that Canada and US do share information, confirming my assumption that the last agent at Campabello was just being a hard ass and could have easily tracked when and where we last crossed. Nothing is private anymore, and certainly not a border crossing.
We crossed the border and headed for St. John, New Brunswick. Our first stop in St. John was at park above the reversing falls with monolithic sculptures. The park was donated by the Irving family, the local economic force. Then we went down to the water’s edge, observed the point where the river and tides met (just turning), found a geocache, and on the way up, stopped to observe a groundhog (or something like a groundhog? I don’t know my marmots) enjoying his lunch. Then we stopped at a cemetery (for a geocache of course) and enjoyed wandering about the memorials.
We arrived at our hotel in St. John while it was still daylight, so we reversed the planned order of our walking tour. We took a lovely path along the water’s edge, picked up a geocache, observed the band playing on a stage in front of a row of restaurants, a statute of a moose and other public art, caught a glimpse of Theodore the Tugboat at anchor (a star of my sons’ childhood Saturday mornings), and then settled into the Big Tide Brewing Company for dinner. There, we eves-dropped on what appeared to be roller derby team on an extended losing streak getting pep-talked by its coach. We completed our walking tour of St. John after dinner, passing by the Three Sisters Lantern and a lovely park, picking up some geocaches on the way (although the last was a DNF, despite extensive searching).
We got an early start from John & Maryanne's on a grey day with intermittent drizzle.
Headed north searching out various points of interest on our way to St. John’s. A lovely fishing village yielded colorful pictures of lobster traps and wharfs near a small park in the middle of the road with a bell mounted in the center.
Visited the eastern most point in the US which had a picturesque lighthouse and a small but interesting museum.
Then on to Campabello Island, intending to geocache and then take the Deer Island ferry to New Brunswick. Change in plan! The Canadian border officer informed us the ferry wasn’t running. So, we crossed onto Campabello Island, stopped at FDR’s summer house for a geocache (near the water, on the lovely grounds of the estate) and then crossed back into the US where the US border agent insisted we had to remove our helmets and interrogated us like we might have illegal immigrants in the top case! I observed (to Jeff) that she should have known we were barely in Canada. Jeff was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt that she might not have that information. With no ferry, we headed toward Calais to cross the border there.
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| FDR Campobello Island Home |
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| The border at Calais |
Our bonus for taking the long way around was our detour to the St. Croix International Historic Site. St. Croix Island is in Canada, but the NPS site is in the US. The docent did a great job explaining the history of the first French settlement led by Pierre Dugua (spelled differently at different historic sites), and the settlers’ disastrous winter in which about half the party died of scurvy. Fun fact: moose meat has vitamin C in it from the cedar bark the moose eat. Unfortunately, the settlers didn’t have any moose meat until the Indians came and rescued them the following March. There’s a nice path to a river outlook with statues and interpretive signs. The history is known through the diaries of Samuel Champlain. This unplanned stop turned out to be the perfect jumping off place for the “Evangeline Trail” part of our journey which came later.
Once at the Calais border station, we both noted a sign stating that Canada and US do share information, confirming my assumption that the last agent at Campabello was just being a hard ass and could have easily tracked when and where we last crossed. Nothing is private anymore, and certainly not a border crossing.
We crossed the border and headed for St. John, New Brunswick. Our first stop in St. John was at park above the reversing falls with monolithic sculptures. The park was donated by the Irving family, the local economic force. Then we went down to the water’s edge, observed the point where the river and tides met (just turning), found a geocache, and on the way up, stopped to observe a groundhog (or something like a groundhog? I don’t know my marmots) enjoying his lunch. Then we stopped at a cemetery (for a geocache of course) and enjoyed wandering about the memorials.
We arrived at our hotel in St. John while it was still daylight, so we reversed the planned order of our walking tour. We took a lovely path along the water’s edge, picked up a geocache, observed the band playing on a stage in front of a row of restaurants, a statute of a moose and other public art, caught a glimpse of Theodore the Tugboat at anchor (a star of my sons’ childhood Saturday mornings), and then settled into the Big Tide Brewing Company for dinner. There, we eves-dropped on what appeared to be roller derby team on an extended losing streak getting pep-talked by its coach. We completed our walking tour of St. John after dinner, passing by the Three Sisters Lantern and a lovely park, picking up some geocaches on the way (although the last was a DNF, despite extensive searching).
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